My wife and I stopped by with high hopes. The website really points up the fun food and great beers. The execution, however, didn't quite live up to the hype. Our visit got off to a rocky start trying to locate a place to park. This isn't exactly downtown Raleigh, so we figured this wouldn't be a problem. Guess what? It's a problem.
We could see the place was sparsely populated, yet the handful of parking spaces around the facility were all occupied, and a large box truck had simply sidled up on the sidewalk, requiring me to execute a ridiculous four-point maneuver just to exit the area in front if the place. Driving around back exposes what looks like a perfect solution: a huge parking lot. Sadly, signs notified us this lot is reserved for state employees (we were there on a Friday afternoon) during the work week. Our third attempt to park landed us on a side street festooned with a forest of Raleigh's infamous, completely indecipherable parking signs. We parked the car in what looked like a recently vacated spot, and prayed we were going to be unticketed.
We poked our heads in the door and asked the bartender if we could sit on the almost-empty patio, and were told to grab a table, and a server would be with us shortly. A server came from inside and plopped menus in front of us. When we started to ask questions, she shut us down by sharply informing us she wasn't going to be our server, and someone else was on the way. Well, excuuuuuuse me for thinking a sever who gave me a menu might just possibly be my server.
The next server to come to our table was at least a more personable one, so we ordered a couple beers and an appetizer. For a small craft brewery, I felt the half dozen options available at this location were overly-limited. There was no pale ale or non-flavored IPA to choose from. I had to move on to one of their canned beer offerings to find something I liked. The appetizer description we saw was delightful, but the deep-fried balls of risotto that came to our table were greasy and fatty with just a blob of cheese in the middle. No broccoli or onion flavor as described.
We each ordered a personal-sized pizza so we could try different styles. My wife's creamy garlic sauce with jalapenos was all hot, hot, hot jalapenos. We both enjoy spicy foods and peppers, but these jalapenos were so damn hot, they completely obliterated any other flavors on the pizza. It was just eye-watering hot, and not in a good way.
This place claims to make the best pizzas around, but I have to admit ours were dry and chewy with little of the exuberant flavors suggested by the menu descriptions. My personal preference for any place that claims to make the best pizzas is that it must assure me the pizzas are cooked in a wood-burning oven. These are not. They have creative toppings that should make for a very tasty pizza. Sadly, they simply aren't nearly as good as the descriptions would imply.
I am giving Trophy Brewing two stars simply because they have the right basic ingredients for a good beer and pizza place. The initial interactions with the non-server, the "meh" beer selection, and the dry pizzas knocked this down pretty quickly for us. We likely won't be back. read more